Don't send your kids to private school

[Anonymous]

My experience was somewhat similar to OP's. I've noticed that people who got good writing instruction in middle school and high school usually have a lifelong advantage. People who didn't get that rarely catch upz though some of them do. To me, that's a big advantage of private schools. Spouse agreed when it was time to choose. So we chose to send our kids to private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to 'top' private schools and hated it so much. I always wanted to attend public school. I wish my parents invested the 50k year tuition (or just gave it to me) instead.

Public school = inflated gpas, easy classes, less workload, bigger campuses, and you actually get to choose your classes.

You know how maddening it is to have everyone tell us how "easy" we have it and how "privileged" we are when high school was miserable. I had to work 10x harder to get a mediocre GPA. Scored in the 97th percentile on my SAT and it simply wasn't good enough with such an awful GPA.

I attended a top 20 university that felt 100x less stressful than high school. Graduated summa cum laude with barely any effort. Meanwhile, there were countless public school students who entered university with absurd 4.5 GPAs, mediocre SAT scores, and struggled at the university level.

I even had roommates who FAILED classes when they were 'superstars' at their public high schools. And public school students all think they're geniuses because like 90 percent of them have at least a 4.0 GPA. Meanwhile, maybe 2 percent of students at private high school have a 4.0.

I attended the Dalton school in New York and National Cathedral School in DC. And only a handful of girls went to Ivys btw (my brother attended St Albans and more boys were accepted, but not many). Although my brother did go on to attend an Ivy league law school. Even with SAT scores above the 97th percentile, we STILL weren't competitive enough for the top 10 universities. Admittedly, I wasn't the most dedicated student back then, but I guarantee I would have had a 4.0 at public school with the same amount of effort.

If I have kids in the future (I'm still in my 20s), then I will never send them to private school. The education is not even superior, they just force more work on you. A few teachers were bitter weirdos who constantly guilt-tripped us and made us feel like trash for having wealthy parents & being "privileged". They would literally bring up their teacher salaries in front of us and tell us how 'lucky' we were constantly. What a lovely environment.

Honestly, the best plan is to send your kid to public school (for less stress, more choice, and an inflated GPA). Just get them an SAT tutor on the side. Then invest the 50-60k you'd spend a year. It's the perfect combo.

What you don't realize is that sending your child to private school isn't about the child's education really. It's about the parent's social group. Even parents who hate their private school cannot stomach the idea of having to say that their children go to public school - and intentionally it's the first topic when meeting new acquaintances with children.

Haha

[Anonymous]

OP, I can empathize with where you're coming from. Depending on what sports you played at NCS, there's a non-zero chance I coached you in one or more of them. I know NCS is a pressure cooker, and super stressful for lots of girls there. I went to public through eighth grade and then private for high school, including three years of boarding school. It definitely made college easier (though I made it easier still, lol). I made the choice to leave home and go to boarding school, and although I hated and still hate many aspects of that experience, it turned out to be better for me than the alternative (which would have involved moving twice during high school) would have been. Everyone needs to make their own choices, and the kids need to have agency to do so themselves as well. Sounds like maybe you didn't have that, which is unfortunate. I hope at least that if you *were* one of the 150-200 girls at NCS who played on any of my teams, that THAT experience made it better.

Anonymous wrote:I went to 'top' private schools and hated it so much. I always wanted to attend public school. I wish my parents invested the 50k year tuition (or just gave it to me) instead.

Public school = inflated gpas, easy classes, less workload, bigger campuses, and you actually get to choose your classes.

You know how maddening it is to have everyone tell us how "easy" we have it and how "privileged" we are when high school was miserable. I had to work 10x harder to get a mediocre GPA. Scored in the 97th percentile on my SAT and it simply wasn't good enough with such an awful GPA.

I attended a top 20 university that felt 100x less stressful than high school. Graduated summa cum laude with barely any effort. Meanwhile, there were countless public school students who entered university with absurd 4.5 GPAs, mediocre SAT scores, and struggled at the university level.

I even had roommates who FAILED classes when they were 'superstars' at their public high schools. And public school students all think they're geniuses because like 90 percent of them have at least a 4.0 GPA. Meanwhile, maybe 2 percent of students at private high school have a 4.0.

I attended the Dalton school in New York and National Cathedral School in DC. And only a handful of girls went to Ivys btw (my brother attended St Albans and more boys were accepted, but not many). Although my brother did go on to attend an Ivy league law school. Even with SAT scores above the 97th percentile, we STILL weren't competitive enough for the top 10 universities. Admittedly, I wasn't the most dedicated student back then, but I guarantee I would have had a 4.0 at public school with the same amount of effort.

If I have kids in the future (I'm still in my 20s), then I will never send them to private school. The education is not even superior, they just force more work on you. A few teachers were bitter weirdos who constantly guilt-tripped us and made us feel like trash for having wealthy parents & being "privileged". They would literally bring up their teacher salaries in front of us and tell us how 'lucky' we were constantly. What a lovely environment.

Honestly, the best plan is to send your kid to public school (for less stress, more choice, and an inflated GPA). Just get them an SAT tutor on the side. Then invest the 50-60k you'd spend a year. It's the perfect combo.

[Anonymous]

Public schools have an amazing diversity including many strong magnets that are absolutely free. Any kid at Thomas Jefferson magnet in VA could out perform most private school kids easily and the work is far more challenging, particularly in STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to 'top' private schools and hated it so much. I always wanted to attend public school. I wish my parents invested the 50k year tuition (or just gave it to me) instead.

Public school = inflated gpas, easy classes, less workload, bigger campuses, and you actually get to choose your classes.

You know how maddening it is to have everyone tell us how "easy" we have it and how "privileged" we are when high school was miserable. I had to work 10x harder to get a mediocre GPA. Scored in the 97th percentile on my SAT and it simply wasn't good enough with such an awful GPA.

I attended a top 20 university that felt 100x less stressful than high school. Graduated summa cum laude with barely any effort. Meanwhile, there were countless public school students who entered university with absurd 4.5 GPAs, mediocre SAT scores, and struggled at the university level.

I even had roommates who FAILED classes when they were 'superstars' at their public high schools. And public school students all think they're geniuses because like 90 percent of them have at least a 4.0 GPA. Meanwhile, maybe 2 percent of students at private high school have a 4.0.

I attended the Dalton school in New York and National Cathedral School in DC. And only a handful of girls went to Ivys btw (my brother attended St Albans and more boys were accepted, but not many). Although my brother did go on to attend an Ivy league law school. Even with SAT scores above the 97th percentile, we STILL weren't competitive enough for the top 10 universities. Admittedly, I wasn't the most dedicated student back then, but I guarantee I would have had a 4.0 at public school with the same amount of effort.

If I have kids in the future (I'm still in my 20s), then I will never send them to private school. The education is not even superior, they just force more work on you. A few teachers were bitter weirdos who constantly guilt-tripped us and made us feel like trash for having wealthy parents & being "privileged". They would literally bring up their teacher salaries in front of us and tell us how 'lucky' we were constantly. What a lovely environment.

Honestly, the best plan is to send your kid to public school (for less stress, more choice, and an inflated GPA). Just get them an SAT tutor on the side. Then invest the 50-60k you'd spend a year. It's the perfect combo.

Thanks for making the case for a private school education